Dr Tom Bruzstowski may have departed but his vision for Science and Engineering Research Canada (NSERC) continues to evolve. Two years after laying out the details of a six-point plan to enhance NSERC’s reach and presence, all elements have been implemented, including the first two regional offices in an eventual network of five, designed to increase awareness of the grant-ing agency’s diverse portfolio of programs.

The first office has been established in Moncton NB on the campus of the Univ of Moncton and after more than a year of operation the results are encouraging. Staff have been extremely active in reaching out to the academic, government and industrial communities to promote the NSERC program while developing administrative protocols that will be used to set up other offices.

The NSERC Atlantic Regional Office (ARO) is headed up by Dr Yves Gagnon, a researcher who is on a two-year secondment from the Univ of Moncton. He says the approach towards the office taken by NSERC allows the region’s unique characteristics and challenges to be reflected in the implementation of its three-pronged mandate — presence, promotion and programs. Gagnon credits the extensive consultation that occurs prior to any decisions on location or staffing for increasing the likelihood of success.

“The concept of the regional offices came from Ottawa but it was not implemented as a come-from-Ottawa solution. The mandate of this office is exactly what people were asking for in the region,” he says. “NSERC is really well known for discovery grants (but) there is a multitude of other programs that are not well known — industrial research chairs, post doctoral fellowships and most importantly the innovation programs like the research partnerships programs. They are under utilized.”

INNOVATIVE OUTREACH

To increase the uptake on these programs, the ARO has instituted a workshop series. The first workshop involved federal and provincial public servants, followed by a session with so-called multiplier groups — industry associations, industry sectors and government officials whose mandate includes research and innovation, and university officials from technology transfer offices. The third workshop series targets specific industry sectors to match up companies with university and industry players relevant to their business. While it’s still too early to provide definitive data on the impact of the ARO’s outreach, initial signs are encouraging,” says Gagnon.

“We’ve put into place a tracking mechanism and we have anecdotal evidence of progress where there was a major increase for smaller programs,” he says. “What we see is people know NSERC better than they did before.”

NSERC will spend slightly more than $2 million annually once the regional office program is fully implemented. Each office will cost about $400,000 to staff and operate each year.

A second office in Winnipeg, situated in the offices of the National Research Council’s Institute for Biodiagnostics, will be officially opened in November. It will be headed by Ray Hoemsen, VP applied research at Red River College. The next regional office slated to open is in Vancouver with a final decision on a downtown site just weeks away. Consultations will begin early next year on the final two offices, slated for Ontario and Quebec. Gagnon says the early experience of the ARO will be shared with the other offices as they come on line.

“We’re reaching out aggressively and extensively in the four Atlantic provinces and we’re working internally to structure the concept, working with colleagues to establish processes, archiving and communications systems,” he says. “We’re always thinking about the next offices and how to establish them in terms of administration and governance. We also realize that it’s not going to be copycated. Each office will have its own nuances in terms of mandates.”

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